The security continuum and the EU as a security actor

The emergence of the European Security Continuum and the greater blurring of internal and external security are reshaping scholars and practitioners’ conceptualisations and perceptions of the European Union (EU) as a security actor. This chapter analyses the ways in which EU strategies, policies, and actions aimed at ensuring the security of the Union and its citizens have undermined these particular conceptions of EU power and actorness. The EU has been identified by scholars, and has self-identified, as a different type of power in politics and international relations. The EU has long identified itself as a distinctive power, as a civilian or normative power, not acting primarily in self-interest but as a force for good in the world. The chapter concludes that the blurring of internal and external security is contributing to the unravelling and rearticulation of the framing of EU distinctiveness as a security actor.